Tag: minimalism

{ If you’re just joining the party bus, catch up on my KonMari journey to date. Or head on over to YouTube to hear me talk about it (including the corresponding video for today’s post). Or if you’ve no idea what I’m talking about, read my introduction to the KonMari Method. } I feel like there should be dramatic music here because this was such a daunting and challenging task, and in a dusty and cramped environment to boot. To me, the attic used to hold a lot of awe and wonder — it was where my parents stored Christmas presents… Onwards! ->

If you’re going to tackle your kids’ toys, I can’t emphasise enough how important it is that they’re out of the way when you do it. Anything else is pure folly, like sweeping leaves in a hurricane. You have been forewarned. That’s what I found when I did a little pre-declutter with my daughter around. Lot’s of “oohing” and “aahing” out of her as she re-discovered lost “treasures” (mostly things that made lots of noise). I quickly admitted defeat and deferred the project to a later date. If you have kids of your own, you’ll understand and empathise when I… Onwards! ->

So I finally started tackling the first of the trio of terror — the garage (the other two being my daughter’s toys and the attic). Seriously, I’d been putting this off for so long that it became this giant Everest in my head. Though, in fairness, it’s easy to see why: My husband was convinced I was mad when I told him what I was going to do (although he’s been “convinced” of that for a long time now). He tried to persuade me to put it off to a day when he was available to help out, and after… Onwards! ->

After taking such a long break from the KonMari Method, there were 3 areas I knew I wanted to tackle next: the linen closet, the garage (actually just a space under the outside steps), and my daughter’s toys. (If you want to hear why I took a break, watch my YouTube video here, and I also took the time to re-asses and re-evaluate the Method by looking at the pros and cons as I’ve experienced them and deciding what I wanted to do differently going forward, which you can watch here.) The linen closet was BY FAR the least disastrous… Onwards! ->

You can keep a secret, right? Super. Then you’re not going to tell Marie Kondo that, recently, I’ve been tackling some locations instead of categories, are you? Excellent. On with the KonMari show! After finishing the kitchen (which you can read about here), I was frustrated by the amount of stuff that was still in there. Toys, for example. And books. And things that had been “discarded” in the kitchen purge but were still sitting around waiting to be re-homed to the charity shop. So I did the only thing I could think of that would bring me some sanity… Onwards! ->